Overview of Multi-Antenna Systems
Multi-antenna techniques may be used to significantly increase the data rates and reliability of a wireless communication system. System performance may in particular be improved if both the transmitter and the receiver are equipped with multiple antennas, which results in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication channel. Such systems and/or related techniques are commonly referred to as MIMO.
The LTE standard is currently evolving with enhanced MIMO support. A core component in LTE is the support of MIMO antenna deployments and MIMO related techniques. For instance there is LTE-Advanced support for a spatial multiplexing mode with the possibly channel dependent precoding. Precoding is a form of beamforming to support multi-layer transmission in multi-antenna wireless communications. Beamforming is a signal processing technique used in sensor arrays for directional signal transmission or reception.
Spatial multiplexing is transmission techniques in MIMO wireless communications to transmit independent and separately encoded data signals from each of the multiple transmit antennas. The spatial multiplexing mode is aimed for high data rates in favorable channel conditions. An illustration of the spatial multiplexing operation is provided in FIG. 1.
As seen FIG. 1, the information carrying symbol vector s is multiplied by an NT×r precoder matrix WNT×r, which serves to distribute the transmit energy in a subspace of the NT (corresponding to NT antenna ports) dimensional vector space. The precoder matrix is typically selected from a codebook of possible precoder matrices, and typically indicated by means of a precoder matrix indicator (PMI), which specifies a unique precoder matrix in the codebook for a given number of symbol streams. The r symbols in s each correspond to a layer and r is referred to as the transmission rank. In this way, spatial multiplexing is achieved since multiple symbols can be transmitted simultaneously over the same time/frequency resource element (TFRE). The number of symbols r is typically adapted to suit the current channel properties.
LTE uses OFDM in the downlink (and DFT precoded OFDM in the uplink) and hence the received NR×1 vector yn for a certain TFRE on subcarrier n (or alternatively data TFRE number n) is thus modeled by:yn=HnWNT×rsn+en where en is a noise/interference vector obtained as realizations of a random process. The precoder, WNT×r, may be a wideband precoder, which is constant over frequency, or frequency selective. Note that the signals above (e.g., yn) could alternatively represent a signal in the time-domain. It is generally understood that signals described herein may represent signals in other domains than in the time-frequency grid of an OFDM system.
The precoder matrix is often chosen to match the characteristics of the NR×NT MIMO channel matrix H, resulting in so-called channel dependent precoding. This is also commonly referred to as closed-loop precoding and generally strives for focusing the transmit energy into a subspace which is strong in the sense of conveying much of the transmitted energy to the user equipment. In addition, the precoder matrix may also be selected to strive for orthogonalizing the channel, meaning that after proper linear equalization at the user equipment the inter-layer interference is reduced.
In closed-loop precoding for the LTE downlink, the user equipment transmits, based on channel measurements in the forward link (downlink), recommendations to the eNodeB of a suitable precoder to use. The user equipment selects a precoder out of a countable and finite set of precoder alternatives, referred to as a precoder codebook. A single precoder that is supposed to cover a large bandwidth (wideband precoding) may be fed back. It may also be beneficial to match the frequency variations of the channel and feedback a frequency-selective precoding report, e.g., several precoders, one per sub-band. This is an example of the more general case of channel state information (CSI) feedback, which also encompasses feeding back other entities than precoders to assist the eNodeB in subsequent transmissions to the user equipment. Such other information may comprise channel quality indicators (CQIs) as well as a transmission rank indicator (RI). For the LTE uplink, the use of closed-loop precoding means the eNodeB is selecting precoder(s) and transmission rank and thereafter signals the selected precoder that the user equipment is supposed to use.